SAM Magazine--Denver, Colo., April 2, 2004--Colorado's ski industry generates $2 billion annually and provides 31,000 jobs, according to a report released by Colorado Ski Country USA. The ski industry accounts for more than a quarter of the state's $7 billion tourism revenues. Resorts take in nearly $1 billion themselves, while estimates of reve...

SAM Magazine--Big Bear Lake, Calif., Mar. 26, 2004--A forest fire that burned 400 acres led to the evacuation of Bear Mountain and Snow Summit ski areas late Thursday, and Bear Mountain remained closed Friday. By late Friday the fire was under control, though, and both areas will be open on Saturday. Neither area suffered significant damage. The...

SAM Magazine--Boulder, Colo., Mar. 25, 2004--Perkins Miller has become vice president, managing director of Mountain Sports Media, a new position at the company and part of a restructuring effort aimed at developing the group's multi-media capabilities. Miller was most recently editor-in-chief of Skiing Magazine. In his new role, Miller assumes ...

SAM Magazine--Winter Park, Colo., March 25, 2004--Explosives used for avalanche control were stolen from the Winter Park ski area last weekend. On Monday morning, ski resort patrollers found that an undisclosed number of high-explosive Trojan Boosters, cylinders packed with pentaerythritol tetranitrate, had been taken from a locked storage shed...

SAM Magazine--Donnelly, Ida., March 25, 2004--Jim Spenst is joining Tamarack Resort as vice president of operations. Spenst is currently vice president of mountain operations for Copper Mountain Resort, and will remain in that position through the current season. At Tamarack, Spenst will oversee lift operations, the Alpine and Nordic trail syste...

SAM Magazine--Avon, Colo., March 23, 2004--In "Operation Freedom Lodging," Keystone and Breckenridge are offering 1,000 complimentary room nights to troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan for R&R. Rooms are available between April 1 and December 16. A soldier from any branch of the military who has served on active duty for more than 30 days...

SAM Magazine--McLean, Va., March 17, 2004--Overall sales for the winter sport market (including specialty and chain stores) increased 1.8 percent in dollars to $1.72 billion for August 2003 through January 2004, according to the SnowSports Industries America (SIA) Retail Audit. Unit sales were ahead 5.8 percent. Growing interest in Nordic and telem...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., March 17, 2004--Booth Creek resort operations revenues rose 2 percent for the first quarter ended Jan. 30, 2004, to $47,315,000, as earlier openings at Sierra-at-Tahoe and the Summit areas in Washington State offset a slower season in the East. Increased snow school, equipment rental, retail and food and beverage sales al...

SAM Magazine--North Creek, N.Y., March 12, 2004--The state comptroller has endorsed a proposal to link Gore Mountain and the North Creek Ski Bowl, create 2,500 new lodging beds and extend passenger train service from Saratoga Springs to North Creek, providing New Yorkers direct train service to the resort. Comptroller Alan Hevesi predicted the d...

SAM Magazine--Denver, Colo., March 12, 2004--Visits to resorts in Colorado were up 3.5 percent over year-ago levels in January and February, according to Colorado Ski Country USA. Areas recorded 4,982,652 visits during the period. Destination visits led the rise. Destination resorts hosted 1,582,555 visits (a 6.1 percent increase over 2002-03) i...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., Mar. 10, 2004--Vail Resorts, Inc. reported a net loss for the six months ended Jan. 31, 2004 of $32.1 million, compared to a net loss of $8.4 million for the same period last year. Excluding charges for early extinguishment of debt and mold remediation at the Breckenridge Terrace employee housing, Vail's expected net l...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, Mar. 10, 2004--American Skiing Company (ASC) lost $21.7 million in its fiscal second quarter ended Jan. 31, 2004, compared to a loss of $16.7 million for second quarter of 2003. For the first six months of fiscal 2004, net loss totalled $62.9 million, compared with a net loss of $55.8 million in the corresponding peri...

SAM Magazine--Fraser, Colo., Mar. 3, 2004--Marise Cipriani is repositioning her SolVista ski area again, changing the name to The Granby Ranch and marketing the ski area and its related real estate as an affordable mountain resort community. Cipriani purchased the SilverCreek ski area in 1995, and renamed it SolVista in 2000. The Granby Ranch co...

SAM Magazine--Killington, Vt., Mar. 3, 2004--In their continuing protest against high taxes on second homes, Killington voters approved a proposal to secede from Vermont and join the state of New Hampshire at the town's annual meeting Mar. 2. Vermont's Act 60 and Act 68, passed years ago, set higher tax rates for second-home properties than for ...

SAM Magazine--Ludlow, Vt., March 2, 2004--As of March 1, Tim and Diane Mueller are the proud owners of Crested Butte Ski Resort in Colorado. The Muellers, who own Okemo, Vt., and run Mount Sunapee, N.H., purchased the resort from the Callaway and Walton families for an undisclosed amount, though speculation puts the figure at about $50 million. ...

SAM Magazine--Big Sky, Mont., February 24, 2004--Boyne USA, the owners of Big Sky resort, have filed a suit against neighboring newcomer, Moonlight Basin Ranch. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the suit alleges that Moonlight Basin is trespassing on Big Sky property and endangering its employees and clients. The two areas share a boundary ...

SAM Magazine--Tupper Lake, N.Y., Feb. 19, 2004--A group of investors from Philadelphia has agreed to buy 6,400 acres, including the defunct Big Tupper ski area and thousands of acres around it, with the goal of creating a year-round resort. The Big Tupper ski area has been closed for the last four winters. Michael Foxman, one of the project's ei...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, Feb. 19, 2004--Powdr Corp. has named Peter Curtis to be president and general manager of Park City Mountain Resort. Curtis replaces Vern Greco, who became chief operating officer of Powdr a week ago. "Peter is a seasoned industry veteran and has demonstrated strong leadership qualities in his six years at Park City...

SAM Magazine--Whitefish, Mont., February 17, 2004--Big Mountain announced that Frederic Jones has been named the new president and CEO, effective April 1, 2004. Jones replaces Michael Collins who resigned after 15 years at the helm. Most recently, Jones worked for Ski Country Advisors, a business valuation and financial consulting firm in Salt L...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., Feb. 4, 2003--Vail Resorts has named Ian Arthur, senior director of marketing and brand management for Frontier Airlines for the past two years, as vice president of marketing for Vail and Beaver Creek resorts. He replaces Chris Jarnot, who has been elevated to head of marketing and sales for Vail Resorts. Arthur will ...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, Feb. 4, 2004--Powdr Corporation has named Vern Greco senior vice president-chief operating officer. He will report to Powdr president and CEO John D. Cumming. "This change is intended to accomplish three things," said Cumming. "First and foremost it is our intention to capitalize on the success we have had the past...

SAM Magazine--Keystone, Colo., Feb. 4, 2004--The U.S. Forest Service approved a 577-acre terrain expansion for Keystone Resort yesterday, making the above-treeline Erickson Bowl and Little Bowl available for snowcat skiing operations. The resort's Keystone Adventure Tours (KAT) will begin operations within in the next few weeks. "We are really e...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colorado, Jan. 30, 2004--Booth Creek has reported a loss of $5.4 million for fiscal year 2003, which ended Oct. 31, compared to a loss of $1.9 million in fiscal 2002. A decline in skier visits contributed to the wider loss. The company said that skier visits declined nine percent, from 2,154,000 visits in 2002 to 1,953,000 i...

SAM Magazine--Denver, Jan. 23, 2004--The saga of the failed sale two years ago of Steamboat ski area to Triple Peaks LLC, an investor group headed by Okemo owners Tim and Diane Mueller, is getting longer. On Thursday, the Colorado Court of Appeals ordered the issue back to trial, a ruling that Steamboat owner American Skiing Co. (ASC) plans to appe...

SAM Magazine--Portland, Maine, Jan. 15, 2004--Maine ski areas have taken advantage of New England's subzero freeze to make snow ahead of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. "The Maine ski industry has been able to make snow during every single day in 2004," said Greg Sweetser, executive director of Ski Maine. All areas are opening new terrain for t...

SAM Magazine--McLean, Va., Jan. 1, 2004--Strong sales of junior gear and apparel and a rebound in the sales of snowboard gear during August through November kept retail sales at ski and snowboard outlets nearly flat with 2002, according to the SnowSports Industries America (SIA) Retail Audit. Overall, sales for the entire winter sports market (i...

SAM Magazine--Denver, Colorado, Jan. 12, 2004--Visits at Colorado resorts declined nine percent from year-ago totals, according to figures released today by Colorado Ski Country USA (CSCUSA). From the start of the season, Oct. 28, through Dec. 31, 2003, total skier visits were 2,671,532, compared to 2002-03's record 2,942,555. This season's tota...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, Jan. 9, 2004--Park City Mountain Resort will no longer host the "America's Opening" World Cup races in November, which has the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) looking for a new host site. "The challenges of an early season date are extraordinary," said Park City president and GM Vern Greco in explaining t...

SAM Magazine--Boulder, Colo., Jan. 7, 2004--Weather--too much snow, too much rain--dampened visits on some days during the Christmas-New Year's period. But the longer-than-usual holiday (from December 20 through January 4) and determinedly upbeat customers made this a strong, and in some instances record, holiday season for many resorts across the ...

SAM Magazine--Ludlow, Vt., Jan. 8, 2004--Tim and Diane Mueller, owners of Triple Peaks, LLC have entered into a Definitive Purchase and Sale Agreement to buy Crested Butte Ski Resort from the Callaway and Walton families, owners of Crested Butte Mountain Ski Resort, LLC and it subsidiaries. The Muellers signed a Letter of Intent for the purchase...

SAM Magazine--Bozeman, Mont., January 2, 2004--The ownership of the summit of the 11,166-foot Lone Peak, which is home to Big Sky, the Yellowstone Mountain Club and the new Moonlight Basin, is the subject of what is to become a court battle. According to the Billings Gazette, Tim Blixseth, owner of the Yellowstone Club, has filed suit against th...

The East decidedly had it the hardest during Christmas week, but the news gets better out West. Rain on Christmas Eve for southern New England, then temperatures that soared into the 50s and 60s over Christmas and the following weekend, made for a less-than-stellar holiday week for many ski areas in the Northeast. At Ski Bradford, just north of ...

SAM Magazine--Storrs, Ct., December 29, 2003--Marvin W. Kottke, 80, died of a sudden massive stroke on December 26, 2003. Kottke's work in the ski industry is well known after 14 years of preparing the Kottke End of Season Report for the National Ski Areas Association. Though the report has been assembled by RRC Associates since 1994, it still bear...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., Dec. 24, 2003--Vail Resorts and Intrawest have reached an "amicable agreement" to divide the remaining developable assets, liquidate remaining partnership inventory, and ultimately to dissolve their Keystone development partnership. The partnership stems from Vail Resorts' purchase of Keystone in the mid-1990s, at which t...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., Dec. 17, 2003--A woman and her deceased husband's family won a $17.5 million award yesterday stemming from carbon monoxide poisoning at Vail Resorts' Snake River Lodge and Spa in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 2001. The award, the largest personal injury award ever in Wyoming, included compensatory but no punitive damages. Pla...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., December 16, 2004--Vail Resorts, Inc., announced its first quarter numbers last week for the fiscal year 2004 (the quarter ended on October 31, 2003) and the news was mixed. It seems expenses outweighed revenue in quite a few areas, though the company claims it is making headway and that the results were better than antic...

SAM Magazine--Ligonier, Pa., December 16, 2004--A month ago, the owner of Laurel Mountain Ski Resort, George Mowl, announced that he had found a buyer in HomeSpan Financial Group. However, the sale was delayed last week by the untimely death of the president of HomeSpan, John Jones. Both parties claim that the sale will still go through but, in ...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, December 10, 2003--This reporter must first confess that she has absolutely no background in financial matters. So, when American Skiing Company released its first quarter figures today with a caveat about the company adopting Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 150, "Accounting for Certain Financial Instr...

SIN--12/10/03--SIA posted its Retail Audit for the August-October quarter on Tuesday, and it shows a 3.9% sales increase over the same quarter in 2002, based on cash register results at 1085 stores. Ý Specialty stores did very well, doubling sales of ski-and-binding "systems" (thanks largely to a 13% drop in average price) and a 73% rise in ...